ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) suspended the licence of TV channel 24News on Monday after complaints that its Muharram transmission contained hate-based content.<\/p>\n

The complaints were lodged over portions of a Dua read after Asr prayers. The regulator said it had issued an advisory to all television channels on Aug 20, directing them \u201cnot to air material that would harm inter-faith harmony or which is based on sectarianism and inciting hate\u201d.<\/p>\n

The press release issued by Pemra said the 24News channel, which is a part of the Central Media Network, aired \u201chate material during its special Muharram 10 transmission without exercising any editorial control\u201d, thus violating Pemra\u2019s directives.<\/p>\n

The authority added that it took \u201cprompt action\u201d and suspended the channel\u2019s licence under section 30(3) of the Pemra Ordinance.<\/p>\n

Pemra said a show-cause notice had been issued to the channel, seeking a reply within 14 days. The licence will remain suspended until completion of the inquiry.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the TV channel acknowledged that negligence was committed on its part, but added that the contents had gone on air because staffers were not well-versed in Arabic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not know what was being read out,\u201d Mian Tahir, the news channel\u2019s director, said. He said he had explained the position to a senior official of Pemra on Sunday.<\/p>\n

However, he criticised Pemra for cancelling the channel\u2019s licence, saying that suspension of the licence was an \u201cillegal decision\u201d by the regulator and beyond the scope of Pemra rules.<\/p>\n

Mr Tahir said the complainant remained unknown. \u201cPemra should issue a notice first and give us the chance to explain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe practice is that if an explanation is found to be reasonable and satisfactory, a warning is issued to the channel. Suspension of licence is the last option, but Pemra is seeking an explanation after exercising the last option.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newspaper: Dawn<\/a><\/p>\n

Related link: Pakistan Today<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) suspended the licence of TV channel 24News on Monday after complaints that its Muharram transmission contained hate-based content. The complaints were lodged over portions of a Dua read after Asr prayers. The regulator said it had issued an advisory to all television channels on Aug 20, directing [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}